Between Bloodied Lips
by LostWithWords
Summary: This story accounts Sherlock Holmes' most daunting challenge yet ; his heart. The tenant in 221B Baker Street, though seemingly natural begins to occupy Sherlock's senses in ways he could only imagine as unrealistic rot. Yet, she invades his being until Sherlock feels the awakening of the animal in him. What remains to be her endgame? Is it merely possession of Sherlock Holmes?
1. Chapter 1

"Do you need some help with that, perhaps?"

Iran turned from struggling with her keys to find a kind-eyed man looking inquisitively at her. He couldn't be blamed; she was rather quizzically dressed this morning.

"Thank you, awfully. I seem to have gotten my key stuck in the lock." She stepped back to allow him a look.

John Watson was shocked for a minute, his eyes widening at the dishevelled beauty radiating from the woman donning combat boots and a red beret. It took a moment to regain conversational skills.

"Oh yes, they locks are a bit of a bother sometimes. Just let me –" He placed his grocery bag on the floor, and took to rattling the keys. In about a minute, after a fair amount of strategically directed shoving, he wrenched the door open. "There you are. Doors are fine from the inside. Outside too, usually. You just have to be prepared for a bad day once in a while."

"If so, might I, henceforth approach the chivalrous stranger whose vegetables are escaping?" She asked, stifling a giggle.

"Sorry, what?"

She nodded to his bags, whose contents were now rolling on the slightly sloped floor, towards the stairs. "Bloody hell!" He cursed, and after some scrambling, managed to retrieve the lot.

"Sorry about that." He panted lightly. "Long way from the supermarket, you see."

"I'm sure." Iran smiled.

"Are you the new tenant Mrs. Hudson has been railing on about, then?" John asked, shuffling among his bag to make sure nothing was lost, painfully aware of the enchanting light in her eyes.

"I suppose so. My name is Iran." She extended a slender hand that John took hesitatingly.

"Iran..uh..John, John Watson. Pleasure."

"Likewise. Well, I'd better get to settling in." She turned towards the bags tossed outside her door. "I foresee a Herculean task." She sighed.

"Well, before you get to all the heavy lifting, how about a cup of tea? I'm sure my roommate and I could help you with the luggage." John found himself saying while he tried to remember the last time Sherlock moved a plate

"Oh, I wouldn't want to impose..." She began.

"No imposition, I promise you. Do come along."

Her smile widened. "You really are a darling, John."

He turned quickly to avoid her seeing of the blush. He was most conscious of the heat on his cheeks.

"Right, then. Shall we? But I must warn you, my roommate is, how do I put this…different. His heart is pristine but his manners leave much to be wanting. Do try not to punch him in the face."

"Oh, a man of idiosyncracy. Now you have my curiosity, John Watson."

They began to climb the stairs to 221B.

"Where have you been? I've been craving Earl Grey for an hour now, and Mrs. Hudson is off to some flower-picking thing, blast her!" Sherlock's voice pounced upon the two within a second of their entrance.

"Mrs. Hudson is having lunch with her sister. Do you never listen?" He set the bag into the kitchen. "But, pipe down, Sherlock, there's a good boy. We have a guest for tea."

"Guest? What infernal trials have you brought to rain down upon us this time, John?" He stomped into the living room with the temper of a horny elephant…and stopped.

Iran leaned against the kitchen entrance, waves of unbrushed ebony hair gliding to her knees. She gazed at the tall, tempestuous man with questioning eyes. The late morning sunlight bounced off her skin, framing her in a soft, honeyed glaze. She was dressed most clumsily, but the skewed fashion choices barely registered in his scrutiny.

"I'm dreadfully sorry. I didn't know this was a bad time." She half-whispered, her sight sweeping over the man in layers of black. Sherlock had forgotten his scarf, and her eyes rested upon the patch of exposed throat.

He felt a sudden chill run through his bony frame. She looked at his neck with unblinking, unabashed focus, and he could sense some kind of inexplicable longing in her stare. She looked almost…hungry.

"Don't pay heed to him, Iran. And please, have a seat" John broke her gaze as he returned with paraphernalia for tea making. "And Sherlock, say a proper hello to our new neighbour, Iran whose surname I don't recall catching." He handed her a cup.

"Adelia. Thank you, John." She walked to the couch, inhaling the unmistakeable of well-bred tea. "I've always loved a drop of bergamot oil. Vermont Liberty, isn't it?"

"Why, yes." John looked at her, impressed. "Tea enthusiast?"

"Only as a hobby." She sipped. "Lovely."

"Tea, Sherlock?" John turned to his friend who had taken his usual seat and was staring rudely at their guest. "Would you stop gawking, please?"

"Quiet, John. I'm trying to identify the perfume." He inhaled noisily. " Touch of jojoba, just a smidgeon of…"

The moment she looked at him, Sherlock felt his voice stop. There was the most ineffable of reprimands in her eyes. It was gentle, her interruption of his thoughts, like the touch of a finger stilling his lips. He could almost hear the cold air whisper 'shhh' in his ear. It was as if she touched him without touching, as if her eyes bade his cells and nerves to receive sensations without stimuli.

"Sherlock?" John called, confused. He had never, in all the years of their friendship heard Sherlock stop in the midst of a sentence. Did she somehow…cut him off? They certainly had been looking at each other for a while.

"Well, I must be going now." She placed her cup and saucer on the table. "Tons to be done."

"Oh right, let's give her a hand, Sherlock?" John stood up.

"What now?" Sherlock snapped. He wasn't feeling too good.

"Let's help Iran move in, yes?" John intoned, biting on each word. Sherlock was uncharacteristically slow this morning.

"You'll have to excuse me. I find myself stranded amidst more pressing concerns." He rose.

"What concerns? You've been up since four complaining about boredom. You made me go snooping for scones at six."

"Yes, and you found possibly the most dreadful sludge available this side of London. I'll bet you anything that what they served Oliver Twist at the workhouse was breakfast at the Ritz compared to those sewage clotted rolls you lugged in."

John watched her eyes widen an inch before resetting. 'Got to give her credit'. He thought, 'She hasn't stomped on his balls yet with those formidable sized boots.'

"Even if I didn't have three hundred and forty two shades of green on the underside of leaves to catalogue, I wouldn't subject myself to the tawdriness of sweating under the burden of what I can only assume is wildly unmatched tops, hats and boots." Sherlock found his voice. "I'd like to think my mind affords me better opportunities."

"Sherlock…"John was amazed at the vitriol in his voice.

"Good morning, Miss Adelia. You have only yourself to blame for heeding John's words."

Sherlock turned, took a single step towards his bedroom when his body lost control. He fell forward, but instead of the floor ascending to meet him, he tumbled into absolute darkness. A black fist crashed into his face, completing darkness of sight with darkness of mind.


	2. Chapter 2

The universe was exquisitely restless, and Sherlock Holmes, groggy from the milkshake of galaxies frothing in the underside of some gigantic bowl drifting above his eyes, tried to think of ways to slow down the cosmic pace. He was sure he was read something of the sort in the New York Trilogy. Or was that Calvin and Hobbes? Wait, he hadn't read Calvin and Hobbes since…wait, was he a Calvinist…?

"Sherlock.."

"Mmmm.." Why was the universe calling him? Did someone murder a comet? Did comets bleed light?

"Sherlock. Wake up."

Why did the universe sound familiar?

"Sherlock."

Why did the universe sound like John? Was John the sound of the stars? Did he spend his time with a demigod?

"Sherlock!" A proper shaking of his shoulders drove the detective through an arch of light, into strangely familiar scenes of billowing curtains and starched sheets. It took a moment, but he recognised his room.

"Wake up already. You've been out like a light." John leaned over him, eyes fraught with concern.

"What…? When..?" His tongue wrestled against its own weight.

"Nearly twelve hours. Strangest thing." John got up to leave. "You came back from Iran's and just popped out."

"I'm sorry…who?" Sherlock couldn't think beyond the wall of lazy pain trotting at his temples.

"Iran Adelia. Our new neighbour. We helped her settle in. Sherlock, are you all right?" He was being exceptionally frazzled this morning, uncharacteristic of an intellect that operated with vitriolic speed every second.

"Yes, perfectly fine but for this ghastly headache." He rubbed his head. "Wait, did you say I went to our new neighbour? Because I distinctly remember…ugh" He grunted as a sudden spurt of pain shot into his skull.

"Remember what? Sherlock, you're worrying me. Do you want some tea or something? Maybe a doctor?"

"Just get me an aspirin and I'll be fine." He grunted again. "I might need that tea, though."

John nodded, knowing better than to argue. "I'll set the kettle."

"I'll be in the drawing room in five minutes. Close the door behind you."

Once alone, Sherlock clambered out of bed. His entire body ached, and waves of agony seared through his nerves all the way to his scalp. His clothes, frightfully dishevelled, brought back his last conscious memory, that of telling their neighbour the impossibility of his lifting a finger to do anything resembling a mover's occupation. 'Then what on earth is John jabbering about?' He clasped his head, willing the throbbing to stop. No such luck. "Oh shut up." He muttered irrationally to the air and headed into the bathroom.

By the time he sat down for his tea, Sherlock was starting to see spots on the edges of his peripheral vision. He felt parched, and tasted sandpaper in his mouth. In fact, he felt rather suspiciously fatigued, his eyes watered and his eyelids weighing down. He was exhausted. After twelve hours of sleep, his body seemed as if it had just taken a beating.

"You look practically half-dead, dear." Mrs Hudson had been flitting about, tending to their household work.

"Must be the flu." Sherlock mumbled, still grasping his head.

"This is hardly flu season." John stirred sugar into his tea. "Did you manage to eat something out of the ordinary?"

"Of course not. And for God's sake, do shut up, both of you. Your voices lacerate my soul."

The other two rolled their eyes in unison, not too worried. Sherlock Holmes seemed perfectly himself, just sick.

"Whatever it is, I'll grab some medicine, just in case." Watson said, disregarding his friend's scrowl.

"Medicine? Who's sick so early?"

The voice carrying the last few words ripped through Sherlock's painful haze like a sword through a single hair. In seconds, every speck of contagion in his senses just…cleared. His head, throat, tongue, eyes instantly lost irritation and reverted to optimal functioning. He blinked quickly, trying to make sense of the change.

"Good morning, dear. You look quite lovely this morning." Mrs Hudson greeted Iran who stood near the doorway to the men's apartment, dressed in a red sweater and jeans that simple made her glow. Sherlock wasn't sure how she did it, but turning disastrous ensembles into runaway hits seemed her occupying hobby.

"Thank you, Mrs Hudson. And also, the casserole you sent last night was delicious. I put the pot in your kitchen." She walked in. "I was just returning when I head John mention medicine. Thought I'd come in to check."

"What accent is that you've been sporting?" Sherlock asked with usual abruptness.

"Pardon..?" She rested her eyes on his neck, exposed again. He tried to ignore it.

"Your accent. Highly masked, but discernible to the astute listener. I would say you hail from somewhere in South Asia, India perhaps, but your coldness of tonality is reminiscent of a more…"

"Your eyes are absolutely bloodshot." She quipped.

All three pairs of eyes in the room zeroed in on possibly the only person, except John Watson, who had interrupted Sherlock Holmes. What was more, she did so with an absolute disregard for his deductive rant.

"Do you have a fever, Sherlock?" Iran reached out and lay her palm on the flabbergasted detective's forehead. "You feel a little warm. And your eyes.." She leaned forward and gently pulled downward the skin beneath his right eye to examine it.

Sherlock felt his heartbeat skyrocket in a nanosecond. Her hair billowed with the softest scent of jasmine, her lips exuded a sweet pink hue and he could see the edges of her collarbone descend from her shoulders to disappear beneath red folds of cashmere. He could almost feel their bluntness on the tip of his tongue as it outlined a path to the crevice hidden beneath that beautiful red.

She moved away. "It must have been that last scoop of ice cream last night."

"Ice cream..what..?" Sherlock was seriously beginning to doubt his sanity.

"We had ice cream and coffee at Iran's place last night, remember? After the cheese and peaches?" John replied.

"We ate what?" He couldn't imagine, by the farthest stretch of his naturally ductile imagination, cheese and peaches to constitute an actual meal.

"You've been acting very strange since morning. That's it. I'm getting you the meds. Be back in a whirl. Get you something, Mrs. Hudson?"

And then Sherlock was left alone with the girl who smelt like the undertone of a meadow. She eased into the sofa beside him. He could not help but appreciate the enmeshing of the black of her hair against the red sweater. There was something in her posture that reminded him of Edvard Munch's 'Puberty', a tender touch of ineffability in her persona. Sherlock realised that he wasn't deducting. He wasn't trying to dissect her identity by tell-tale signs every individual carries around on their person.

"You've been thinking of me." Her voice was quiet, and filled every corner of the room. Every last inch of his hearing.

"Sorry?" He knew she was right; even though he hadn't thought of her until the moment she had appeared, he knew she was right.

"You know what I said." A smirk, like a bolt of lightning, carved her lips.

"You said that I had been thinking of you. I find that assertion…open to question." Diplomacy was not at its best today.

"Hmm." She exhaled. "Come here." Her arm outstretched again, she reached into his collar. Sherlock felt the cool tips of her fingers graze his neck.

"What…?"

"Shhh!"

And he shut up. Her touch, only a butterfly whisper on his heated skin. He wanted to move away, but he didn't feel like it. Her nails scraped against him, and drew a low moan. Sherlock felt the blood race towards his extremities. His breath thickened and his eyelids fluttered to a close.

"Did it hurt last night?" She whispered, her breath tickling his earlobe.

He opened his eyes to find Iran's body pushed against his own. It was weight, warm and cold simultaneously. Her face was inches from his, their breaths mingling in the utter wantonness his body was beginning to crave.

"What are you..?" He began, but her finger brushed against them. "Shhh…" She repeated. "You are a difficult man, Sherlock Holmes." Her voice sent shock waves of desire plummeting through him.

Iran's hand trailed from his lips and neck to his shirt. He could feel the fabric part as she undid his top buttons.

'Is this really happening?' Sherlock whimpered incoherently. He couldn't think, couldn't fight the streaks of pleasure digging into his brain. His shorts tightened, and he…

"Please.."

"You must be taught how to beg. Amateur."

The touch of her lips on his neck, right above the skin protecting his jugular vein. His lips releasing a tortured moan. The prick of…something. And darkness. The same. Again.

"Sherlock. Wake up. Wake up."

He flailed into awakening, short of breath and wild-eyed. "Where is she? What..?"

"Calm down!" John grabbed onto his arms and held him down until he stopped. "Sherlock, what's wrong? Did you have a nightmare?"

"Nightmare? What do you mean? John!" Sherlock scanned his room frantically. "Where is she? Did I pass out again?"

"Where is who? And you only passed out once. You've been out for twelve hours."

Sherlock stared, dumbfounded. "Twelve hours? Continuously? Did I wake up in the middle of it?"

"Not as far as I know. We came back from Iran's flat, and you just went out like a light."

He froze. "Right after I returned?"

"Yes. Now stop being so strange. I'll make tea. Get up already. We have clients."

John left.

Alone. Again. But this time…was it really a dream? Had he dreamt…?

"_You've been thinking of me."_


	3. Chapter 3

Hey guys. Third chapter. Surprised I'm updating this quick [Me very lazy so this be quick]. Anyway, if you've read my fic, please please let me know what you think of it. Reviews = a writer's manna. 3 Thanks for reading!

'_You've been thinking of me…'_

"Not really." Sherlock said to himself. As always, he hadn't noticed when John had left, and continued talking anyway.

But it was true. He hadn't thought about the strange girl downstairs or the strangest dream he had ever had in a long time. For a week after it happened, he had obsessed about the nature of his dream, psychoanalysed it to bareness, and forgot about it. He put it down to fatigue and an enduring obsession with the fact that she had distracted him enough to prevent his inferential skills from working. But more engaging cases had soon come his way.

Strangely though, he was thinking of her now. It was Christmas Eve, a year after the night Irene Adler had left him her camera phone on the mantelpiece. She had gone her own way after having escaped the terrorists in Karachi. Hell, their last goodbye had been strained, hurried, unsatisfactory. Sherlock missed her. Sexually? No. That highly transitory phase had passed. He missed the game. Sure, he had his share of opponents, but they missed the female element. To Sherlock, the closest thing to arousal was friction. Intellectual, emotional friction. After Moriarty, it had been a while since such had come his way.

Yet, the girl with the strange name now wandered in his thoughts. Perhaps it was just the name, or perhaps the fact that he never saw her, though according to Mrs. Hudson, she returned in the wee hours of dawn though she was never seen leaving her flat. After a few days of neighbourly camaraderie, Iran Adelia had disappeared into the bowels of her rooms and a shadowy life. It had been weeks since their only encounter.

Of course, he still couldn't understand why John insisted that they had both helped her settle in. As hard as he tried, Sherlock couldn't recall a single moment of their ostensible time in her rooms. He didn't even have a single visual memory of her apartment walls, her drapes, her furniture, anything. It was like he had moved around in some kind of bubble that prevented memory from perpetuation. He wasn't sure why such a mnemonic void came upon him, but he was going to let it go in light of the murderer who had apparently used a Hanukkah dreidel to kill three security guards.

But – he looked around the room, cheerily adorned with festive decorations – he wished for a bit of company tonight. Different company. Someone he was still new to.

"Excited for tonight?" John was back.

"Hardly."

"Come on, its Christmas Eve. There will be eggnog and cake and rum and.."

"And the very same people I see everyday of my life. And the very same words exchanged. Can't see much to look forward to. There is only a finite number of word combinations those of the common mind can conjure into being."

"Well, those are the only people willing to be in the same room with you without whacking you over the head with a hatchet. I'm not even asking Paula to come." His new girlfriend had, as all others, taken instant dislike to his best friend.

"Hmph."

"Deal with it, genius."

He had. For way too long.

…

"Merry Christmas, dears." Mrs Hudon's optimism was nerve-wracking.

"This is good." Lestrade was wolfing down cake. Evidently, his wife had stopped cooking edible mush.

"Any plans for tomorrow then, Sherlock?" Molly stuttered, blushing. Her resilience amazed Sherlock, as did her luck with other men. Bad, always.

"None. Thankfully." He was quick to discourage any offers for Christmastime company.

Sherlock watched the door from the corner of his eye.

…

The last candle was stubbing down. The molten wax had collected in a pleasant lump at its base. She slipped in without a sound and walked over to the sleeping figure reclined awkwardly on the chair by the bolted windows. His feet propped up on the desk, and a book face down on his chest. His chin angled uncomfortably on his right shoulder, his curls shadowing the arch of his eyebrows; all soothed in the tender light of the dying fire in the old fireplace.

She ran her fingers, just the most careless of touches, through his hair before bringing her hand to rest on his left shoulder.

He woke, looking up to see her face framed in snow-swept curls.

"Doesn't look very comfortable." She said.

"Um…" Sherlock propped himself up and pulled down his legs. "What time is it?"

"Just past two. When did you doze off?"

"I…don't know." He shook his head. "Sorry but, why are you here so late?"

She smiled. "You certainly don't go for politeness, do you? John left a note under my door inviting me to your little gathering tonight. Unfortunately, I was caught up with another engagement. I thought I'd check to see if anyone was up, and drop by a present."

"Where's John?"

"Not here. The door was wide open, and I saw you were asleep rather uncomfortably."

"Yet, I was asleep. And wasn't your journey upstairs predicated upon the assumption that there would be someone still awake? And when you found the actual situation to the contrary, shouldn't you have just left?" Sherlock snapped sardonically.

She was unfazed, having walked over to the fire. "Do I bother you?"

"Yes." He promptly replied.

"Why?" No surprise.

"Because…"

His breath stopped, then a burst of wind rammed into his lungs. Sherlock realised that something external, some object had penetrated his rib cage and hit his lung. A line of blood shot out of his lips, soaking his shirt in seconds. He felt the carpet on the back of his head; he had fallen. He could see the white edges of the rug being overrun by a licorice colored swill. "Mrs Hudson will squeak about this again." He thought.

Then the pain started. His lungs tried to expand to accommodate more air and pump more blood into his brain, but the rupture made bolts of fire shoot along his nerves instead. The warm mush of a late dinner crawled up his food pipe. Wheezing gasps forced out of him, he tried to move. Impossible. The agony was too much.

"How unseemly."

She walked, from the fireplace to where he lay in an ever widening pool of his own blood and puke. "Even a man like you can be terribly unattractive." She knelt beside him, and from the folds of her evening dress drew a small but sharp dagger.

"Shall we begin, Sherlock?"


End file.
